The War Within (31 page)

Hamilton and several others found it mind-boggling that given the critical problems, Rumsfeld would single out these sideline issues.

"The military cannot lose the battle of Iraq," Rumsfeld declared. "But we cannot win without nonmilitary capabilities within the government."

Pace then took his turn. "There are a lot of fixes that you need in Iraq," the general said, "security, economic and governance. The U.S. military can kill people all day long, but we need other capabilities in Iraq. The U.S.

government needs to get younger, more energetic people to go to Iraq."

Is training the Iraqi army the highest priority? Hamilton asked.

"Yes," Rumsfeld interjected, "training is the highest priority. That's where we're beginning to put the money, the time and the effort." It had been nearly two and a half years since the
Newsweek
cover story called Lieutenant General David Petraeus, then the man charged with training the Iraqis, "the only exit plan the United States has."

"What about the surge to Baghdad?" Hamilton asked. "Can we do it?"

"We can surge to Baghdad from the current level of 15 brigades," Pace replied, adding that to sustain a surge beyond July of 2007 would require extending Guard and Reserve tours.

"The more you look like an occupier in Iraq, the more you create a dependency among the Iraqis," Rumsfeld said.

"We need to be pushing responsibility onto the Iraqis."

Panetta asked about Operations Together Forward I and II.

"Fundamentally, we still have a problem because Sunnis and Shia are still killing each other," Pace said. But then he added with unusual candor, "You could have a soldier on every corner, but Sunnis and Shia would still be killing each other. It will take Iraqi leadership to stop this killing. We can keep the lid on it, but they will continue to kill each other without reconciliation."

Perry asked about Anbar province. Are the tribal leaders living up to their promise to pursue al Qaeda? And are we supporting them through Special Operations?

"The tribal leaders have been delivering," Pace said. "Most of the fighting is now being done by the tribes. The Marines are backing them up. Special Operations are going very well in tribal areas, using intelligence from the tribal leaders."

"Have we talked to the Iraqis about bases?" Baker asked.

"We don't talk about it at all," Rumsfeld said. "We do need the capability to give them a sense of security. The U.S.

military is not looking for more places to put bases. But the president of the United States would not want to forgo that possibility."

Hamilton asked, "Do you need a base?"

Rumsfeld didn't reply.

Panetta asked if it were possible to have fewer brigades on the ground and maintain better trainers.

"That is a concept that would depend on developing Iraqi capability," Rumsfeld said. We should reduce our forces based on conditions on the ground. We should say something along the lines of "We will remove X amount of forces from X provinces when you achieve these X benchmarksÖ"

He insisted that the United States must put pressure on the Iraqis and instill in them a level of responsibility. "We essentially have to say to the Iraqis, 'Don't you want our forces to leave?' and make it their initiative to make progress so that U.S. forces leave. We have to give reassurances to the Iraqis that this is their country, and we have to give reassurances to the American people that we are leaving."

"What should we say about failure in our report?" Baker asked.

"You have to be clear that there would be dire consequences," Rumsfeld replied. "And that has to be part of the thinking here. We have to get that into their thinking. We have to get across these dire consequences to the Iraqis too.

There has to be a timetable for progress." And then with great passion Rumsfeld delivered one of his favorite lines, one he had delivered to the president and the war cabinet many times: "We have to take our hand off the bicycle seat."

"What is the period of time here?" asked Vernon Jordan.

"To the Iraqis, it's a period of years," Rumsfeld said. "The American people clearly don't want to stay as long. The American people's timetable is not as long as the Iraqis."

* * *

The next day, November 14, the study group held a secure videoconference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

It was Blair who had requested the interview, apparently aware that his views were in line with those of a majority of the study group members.

Blair had recently sent his top foreign policy adviser, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, to Syria to see if there was a way to pry open the diplomatic doors. Sheinwald had not succeeded, but Blair remained a strong advocate of talking with the Syrians.

Baker asked Blair if he thought another big international conference on the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian issues would be helpfulómuch like the 1991 Madrid Conference that Baker had engineered when he had been secretary of state.

"That would be great," Blair said. "The sooner people think we are determined to move in this area, the better. We need a big, visible expression of our determination."

Hamilton went so far as to ask Blair about his expectations for the Iraq Study Group's report and recommendations.

"We need well-respected, serious people, moving in a consensual way, with a plan for inside Iraq and a plan for the region," Blair said. "This is a bold, strategic opportunityÖ. It is the optimal moment for this report."

* * *

At 2:30 that afternoon, in a cozy fourth-floor conference room inside the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, which Hamilton headed, the members of the Iraq Study Group gathered for a much anticipated session with former President Bill Clinton.

Clinton showed up as usual, all charisma and fanfare. He was dressed in a sharp suit and tailed by an entourage so large that there weren't enough seats in the small meeting space. On the short walk from the elevator to the conference room, the incurable campaigner stopped in every office to shake hands.

The study group had just finished talking with senior members of the Clinton foreign policy teamóNational Security Adviser Sandy Berger, U.N. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, and Secretaries of State Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright. As they were leaving, Clinton invited them to stick around for his interviewóthe old White House and State Department team reunited.

"There are no good options," Clinton said in his opening statement. "If you're going to change course, there are three things you can do. You can go up 100,000 troops. You can hang around and get bled to death. Or you can redeploy

[home]. What else are you going to do? Those are your choices.

"We don't control the situation now. We will have even less control once we draw downÖ. They are not tired of killing each other."

Clinton urged the study group to be frank about the downsides of every option. Be clear that there's no easy solution, he advised. "This cannot be solved in the near term within Iraq. This cannot be solved within the four corners of Iraq," he said. "We have to be better than lucky."

Clinton then went on a lengthy tangent about Afghanistan. "If you don't act in Iraq, the chances of losing Afghanistan are greater and more calamitous for the United States than the loss of Iraq," he said. "The Taliban is making inroads. Our ally, Pakistan, is part of the problem. More troops for Afghanistan is absolutely essential. We cannot address Afghanistan unless we leave Iraq."

He reminded them that the United Nations and the world supported America in Afghanistan. That's not the case in Iraq, he said.

It was a typical Clinton performance, drifting from one topic to the next. At one point, the former president took out an unlit cigar and twirled it in his fingers as he began to talk about diplomacy.

Clinton suggested initiating talks with Iran without any preconditions. "We have to have some trusted adviser and start to talk to Iran," he said. "If you might fight somebody someday, you sure ought to talk to them."

He turned to the Arab-Israeli peace process. "Bush hasn't asked [Israeli Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert to do anything," Clinton said. That was a mistake. "In the first four years of this administration, three times as many Israelis and Palestinians have died as during my administration.

"Whenever we fool with it, less people die and it reduces the animosity toward AmericaÖ. We may fail on one or all these fronts and still be better off than we are now."

Clinton made a strong pitch for engaging the Syrians in the peace process: "Go to the Syrians and ask them, 'Do you really think this relationship with Iraq works for you?'" The war in Iraq was weakening America in the eyes of the world. "Iranian and North Korean foreign policy is to stick it up America's ass because we're tied down in Iraq," he said.

Robb asked him how to convince President Bush to buy into a new approach.

"President Bush deeply believes that Iraq was the right thing to do, and he cannot abandon that belief," Clinton replied. What you must say to President Bush is that "history may still vindicate the decision to invade IraqÖ. They may fight it out for two, three, four or seven years before they grow weary and reach a settlement.

"But history may still vindicate the decision to go to war. So let them fight it out. You cannot stop them from killing each other."

Clinton said he had just returned from Vietnam. Look at that country today. Look at the economy. It's better off than it was before the war. Thirty years from now, some American president might go to Iraq and find a place that's far better off than it is today. Bush has to think in that broad context. "The president believes what he did is right, and that history will vindicate his decision on Saddam."

Clinton displayed a heartfelt empathy for Bush, defending the sincerity of his successor. Right or wrong, Clinton said, Bush doesn't make his decisions based on politics. He believes in this. As president, "ninety percent, maybe 98

percent, of your decision making is not politics, no matter how stupid that may seem to you," he said.

Clinton was in favor of a troop withdrawal from Iraq, but he was against setting deadlines. "You lose leverage with a deadline," he said. He'd prefer pulling people out without advance warning. His preference would be to take some troops out right away to send them to Afghanistan. "You've got to write your report in such a way that what you advocate will make the country stronger and that we can still come out of this right.

"The American people are against" this war. "They think it was a mistake. But they are 50ñ50 about what to do.

Americans hate to lose, but they also hate to pour good money after bad. We're on a psychological razor's edge.

When you write the report, you have to show how America can come out stronger at the end." He paused.

"Americans have to feel like they're on the right side of history."

"Mr. President," Baker said, "you came closer than anyone to a deal with Syria."

He also agreed with Clinton on the need for continued diplomacy on the Palestinian issue.

"It doesn't help Israel when we just sit and wait for the next arms order," the former president said. Leon Panetta thought it sounded almost as if Baker had worked under Clinton.

Hamilton asked Clinton about the consequences of failure in Iraq, as well as the consequences of our current policy.

"It's important to announce that we're pursuing a different course," Clinton said, something Bush had been reluctant to do as the war deteriorated. He said America had alienated much of the world. "We pay a price when everyone hates us."

Panetta asked: How would you get Maliki to move on national reconciliation?

"I would just spend lots and lots of time with him and with them [Iraqi leaders]ÖI would spend a hell of a lot more time with him. Massive amounts of time." That, of course, was Clinton's style, not Bush's.

Clinton returned to the necessity that Bush implement the study group's findings. "If the president announces a change in course, he will get more timeóif you can convince him to change. Nixon was reelected easily. More people were killed [in Vietnam] after Nixon was elected."

He added, "The president may feel this is good for him."

"He wants us to give him a chance to change policy," Baker said.

"The president and the country want you to give the country a way forward," Clinton said. "The costs are very adverse for staying where we are. It's costing us a lot of lives and money."

Clinton's hour had stretched to an hour and a half, and no one seemed eager for it to end, especially Clinton. Even the Republicans were impressed.

Vernon Jordan posed a last question. Would you talk to Bush after the report comes out?

"I'll do it if it helps," Clinton said. "We may differ. But we have a responsibility when we differ to be respectful and to be preciseÖ. There's not a Democrat alive that doesn't want things to go better in Iraq."

Chapter 23

A
t 5 P.M. on Wednesday, November 15, J. D. Crouch assembled his strategy review team for an introductory, organizational one-hour meeting. The group of about a dozen gathered in Room 208óknown as the Cordell Hull Roomóof the Eisenhower Executive Office Building across from the White House.

Crouch, O'Sullivan and her top Iraq staff represented the NSC. Bill Luti, the senior defense director on the NSC staff who had authored the feasibility study of a surge the previous month, also attended.

For State, Rice had appointed Zelikow and Satterfield. Rumsfeld had designated Steve Cambone, a longtime aide and the current undersecretary for Pentagon intelligence, and Peter Rodman, an assistant secretary of defense. Pace sent two lieutenant generalsóDoug Lute, the head of operations for the Joint Staff, and John Sattler, the Joint Staff's head of plans and policy. David Gordon, vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council, represented the director of national intelligence (DNI).

John Hannah, Cheney's national security adviser, represented the vice president's office. He made it clear that anything he asked, said or wrote would reflect only his personal views and not necessarily those of Cheney, who, as they all knew, offered his views directly to the president.